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Friday, May 31, 2013

Six months ago, I bought a sewing machine at a thrift store so I could re-teach myself how to sew, since it's been literally a decade since I last used a sewing machine. Yeah, I feel old, and I'm about as clueless now as I was six months ago.

It's got to the point where I don't know if the problem is that the machines (yes, plural) I've tried to use are both old and ill maintained or if I am just that bad at using them.

The first machine is mine. I've found a gazillion videos on how to thread this specific machine, and the only thing I can figure is that it hasn't aged well. It probably used to be white, but now it's so yellow, it's not hard to imagine its insides are gummed up with nicotine. I tried, okay?

The second machine is my stepmom's, and it's old (but newer than mine). She bought it for the same purpose I bought mine. Then she lost the instruction manual and gave up. I found it in our mudroom covered in sticky pool chemicals. I cleaned it up, and I've tried using it, but with little success. I can't find any manuals or tutorials that are specific to this machine or brand.

A friend of mine was recently injured while playing the sport he's striving to make into a career, so it's a pretty big setback, and I thought he might be feeling bummed about it. I'd found a short story some time ago I'd meant to send to him, but I kept forgetting. It's actually about his sport: "Where Meat Comes From" by Chuck Palahniuk, if you want to know. Today I finally remembered...but I didn't have an envelope to put it in.

No problem! I'd just make one.

I started by cutting apart a paper bag. It even came with the instructions to reuse or recycle the bag. I'm sure they meant "make an envelope with this bag." I'm sure of it.

After a failed attempt at using most of the bag to create the envelope, I was left with only this bit. I cut off the handle.

I had to fold the story to make it fit. Then I folded the bag around the story.

Then I used masking tape to close it up.

And then I used packing tape to seal it up some more. Then I wrote an apologetic note on the outside because I knew it would be a pain in the ass to open.

And voila! The envelope was complete. Since I didn't have much else to do today, and I thought the exercise would be good, I decided to walk the two miles to the post office (and then walk two miles back home). My only other explanation for this decision, which is probably closer to the truth, is that today I woke up determined to be a total badass.

It was only 85 or 90 degrees outside, which isn't terrible for a summer day in South Carolina. I remembered the last time I tried walking to the post office, an event that ended with me calling my older sister in tears, begging her to come get me because I didn't realize how far four miles was. I hadn't brought water or worn the right kind of shoes. But today I was prepared! I filled up a water bottle, put on some headphones, and grabbed my camera. I decided to make this into an adventure where I took pictures of all the interesting things I found.

I like to think this car belonged to a tiny environmentalist. In all likelihood, she begged her mommy for a bumper sticker for her car and Mommy gave her one to shut her up, and it happened to be this one. I like my tiny environmentalist story better. I hope it's true.

I'm sure this organization does great things for our veterans, but its name terrifies me. As if people are donating their hands to hands-less soldiers. I'm sorry if you're just now figuring out I'm demented.

This was also terrifying. I hope these folks made it out okay.

I made it to and from the post office without much trouble. I did have to stop and buy another bottle of water because I hadn't the foresight to bring two bottles, and there was nowhere to refill the empty bottle. I hate buying bottled water with a passion, but staying alive was more important at the time. In all, the trip was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon (at least part of it).

They don't mention the guilt. I've never heard a depression commercial or psychiatrist (same thing, in my experience) mention feelings of guilt. They don't tell you about feeling guilty for your own existence, about feeling like a complete burden to your family and friends. The complete soul-crushing guilt is the emotion left after clinical depression sucks them all away.

The guilt doesn't start right away; it's a combination of why do I feel sad for no reason and my family and friends must be sick of dealing with me. Cognitively, you understand that the people who love you want to help you get better, but you don't feel it.

Your feelings, not your thoughts, are the ones that get to drive the bus to Crazyland.

Eventually, the feeling of guilt becomes so pervasive, you start looking for things to attach it to. I attached guilt to a pseudo-environmentalist part of me: owning and disposing of material possessions. I feel horribly guilty after buying things, especially if I buy something that is brand new. Except for food and underwear, everything I've purchased for myself in recent years has been secondhand. Part of this is frugality--why buy something new if a secondhand item is perfectly functional and less expensive? The other part is environmental; by buying secondhand items, I feel like I am decreasing the amount of waste that goes to the landfill. (But I probably am not in reality because new items are mass produced whether I buy them or not.)

The only extravagances I've allowed myself are "gift" items, things I've bought with money I've received as a gift. But those are fraught with guilt because (1) I received a gift that I deem myself unworthy of and (2) I buy things with the money. I've tried squashing that guilt by buying secondhand items. This thought fell to the wayside after I called my grandfather to thank him for my birthday gift. He asked what I bought, and I told him I bought a sewing machine. Perplexed, he asked how I got a sewing machine for $25. When I explained that it was a used machine, he was noticeably disappointed.

Then I felt guilty for disappointing him. The guilt spiraled on and on until I felt guilty for eating and stopped because I didn't feel I deserved to eat. Because eating is something people who deserve to live get to do.

Depression feels like you can't win, but you can. I'm still recovering after a bout of depression that began some time last year. I have good days and bad. Some days, you'd never even know that something so dark has affected me for over half my life. No matter how you feel, you are never alone.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Today was another one of those days that didn't lend itself to producing a tangible work of art, but I'm trying to do something creative every day. Or at least do something that will help me do something creative in the future.

I did quite a bit of driving today so that I could meet my estranged grandmother for lunch, do some errands, and visit my mother. I always listen to music when I drive. I listen to music whenever possible, especially when I am experiencing some sort of strong emotion, like the urge to be socially avoidant. For all the years I've aspired to be a musician, I've never really spent a lot of time thinking about the music I listen to. At best, I notice a change in key or time signature. Over the years, I've noticed I tend to like male musicians better than most female ones, with a few notable exceptions.

My list of favorite musicians/bands (at the moment)

The Black Angels

The Brian Jonestown Massacre

Flight

Warpaint*

Cat Power*

Smashing Pumpkins (1990s era)

House of Fire

The Dandy Warhols

Mazzy Star*

The Magnetic Fields

Led Zeppelin

Only three of the ones I listed are female-fronted bands. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm not going to worry too much about my preferences. What I've decided to do is think about the compositional elements of the female-fronted bands that I like because, well, I'm a girl. I can't sing like a guy; I mean, I might be somewhere between an alto and a soprano.

I found myself thinking about Cat Power while I was driving. Repetitive guitar parts, like the guitar could be on loop most of the time. Simple drums. Subtle bass. Sometimes there is a piano. Depressing-but-in-a-good-way lyrics.

I now spend significant portions of each day alone in my house, where I could play music without worrying that anyone can hear me. (It's really important that no one hears what I am doing until I'm satisfied with it. Only one or two of my friends have ever heard me perform.) I could even do some crappy demo-y recording of myself if I really wanted to, just to see what I really sound like. It's a start, I guess.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Today I'm feeling pretty blah. Maybe it's because I stayed up until four in the morning after building that tv stand last night and got up early this morning. Today is not a day for trying out the new miniature sewing machine I bought yesterday. (Seriously, that thing has some of the most complicated directions I've ever seen.) And with the luck I've had with sewing lately, it's not a day to sew at all.

I decided to make one of my favorite meals: veggie burgers. I'm not a vegetarian, but I have actually enjoyed some veggie burgers more than burgers made with meat. I would like to learn how to make my own veggie burger patties some day. I've found recipes that look good, but I haven't collected all the ingredients. A downside to living with family is that it's really hard to cook a meal if I'm the only one who's going to eat it. Living alone has the advantage in this case; no one is going to make fun of my dinner if I live by myself. And if it's inedible, no one ever has to know. But for today, I used spicy black bean frozen veggie burger patties.

I use the same toppings for my veggie burgers every time, calling them my "famous" veggie burgers. I cook the patty in a little bit of olive oil and vegan Worcestershire sauce. I add a little pepper (but no salt, there is already a lot of salt in the sauce). Then I brown each side. I spread a little pesto on a bun (usually just toasted bread), add lettuce, sundried tomatoes, and feta cheese. Finally, I add the patty and chow down.

I've tried my hardest to keep this blog updated daily, but yesterday I had to settle for completing a project without having time to write about it. I'd rather not post too many half-assed posts. ;-)

Yesterday, I got a new tv. Since my sister moved out and took our old tv stand with her (okay, it was an ugly coffee table I didn't want), my parents agreed to get me a new one. We ended up buying one of those build-your-own furniture hobby kits. You know, the kind with a million different pieces and about fifty pages of instructions? That kind. It came in a box and weighed sixty-five pounds. Seriously, its weight was labeled on the box.

We bought it, brought it home, and left it sitting in the living room, where it would have stayed if I had not decided to lug it upstairs myself. My dad is many things, but prompt is not one of them. That thing would have remained un-assembled for at least a month if it had been left up to him. So I dragged that 65 pound motherfucker up the stairs and started putting it together. I'd built a bookshelf like this before, so I didn't think the tv stand would be much different.

Clearly I was wrong about that.

But look at me go!

Even though it looks like it's mostly finished, this was really only the halfway point.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

I was inspired to create this blog after I saw a challenge to artists, writers, and musicians for them to create something everyday. I've long aspired to be an artist, a writer, and a musician, but I have never called myself any of those things. Writers write. Musicians create music. Artists practice their skills. Since I began studying at university, I no longer seemed to be able to practice music or drawing every day. My stories and poems were replaced with academic writing.

College is where many people discover who they are. Instead, I became less myself semester by semester. I'm not heartbroken that I wasn't handed a job in education as soon as I graduated. In some ways, I regret deciding to study education instead of graphic design or art.

Part of my whole create something every day mission is to figure out what I want to do with my life, to feel more productive. I think it's a start.

Friday, May 24, 2013

My initial teaching certificate arrived in the mail today. I had a momentary surge of pride. More than I felt at my college graduation, even. I'm officially qualified to be a teacher, but that leads me to question the people who decided to "qualify" me.

I am a good person, and I would probably make a good teacher someday when I can get my shit together. I thoroughly enjoyed the lesson planning and teaching aspects of my internship. I received positive feedback from all the people who saw me teach, including my former babies.

But I'm terrible at interacting with adults, especially anyone I perceive as an authority figure. As in, I am paralyzed by fear. There are things in my life that make sense for me to be this way, but I don't currently possess all the coping mechanisms I need to be successful. I'm not ready to be seen as a real adult.

I liked interning because I could still claim the role of a college student. College students are allowed to fuck up. In fact, I encourage that they do. You learn more from failure than success. Being a college student meant that the one time I chose to get piss drunk and stumble my way around town while singing every song I knew looks more like a regular Saturday night than a moral failure. (In my defense, that's only happened once. My friend and I walked home, nothing sketchy happened, and I wasn't even hungover the next day.)

A great sadness touched my life once I realized what becoming a teacher meant for my life. It felt that after years of pretending to be something I wasn't (read normal, happy, religious), my life was going to be filled with more pretending.

I felt, in some ways, very much like myself when I was teaching. But I also felt that I was suppressing large parts of myself as a person. It's not like I'd go teach kindergarten with purple hair and saying fuck every other word like I do at home. My future children are probably going to think a coffee table is called a shitfuck. But pulling 50 and 60 hour workweeks wouldn't leave much time to dedicate to other things that are very important to me, like music and art. Also eating, sleeping, and having a social life.

The truth is, I'm just not a balanced enough person to make that kind of commitment right now. Even though it's hard to explain to my family members, I think it's better if I focus on being happy, healthy, and getting my life back. I won't be a good teacher until I can do that.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

A friend of mine has joined the Peace Corps and will be leaving in June. I'm pretty bummed about it, but it's an experience that will be rewarding for her. I'm happy she's pursuing one of her life goals. I plan to give her a few small gifts (she has to pack light) before she goes on her journey. Can you guess what I'm making for her?

Until recently, I shared the upstairs of my house with my younger sister, and since I've spent most of my time at school in another city, the "common" space has been an extension of her bedroom. The area of our house which was meant to be our two bedrooms and a shared living room became a labyrinth of boxes, dog hair, beer cans, and rabbit poop.

Needless to say, it was unhealthy, and I dreaded coming home every holiday break. Almost all of my socializing has been done outside my home because I was always too embarrassed to invite anyone over. And any possessions I cared about had to go to my on-campus apartment or stay shut in my room at home, where their safety was not guaranteed.

But last week my sister, her boyfriend, and their dog got their own house. Other than their absence, nothing really changed in the amount of filth and clutter in our house. The only thing missing was our tv.

I woke up today, and today was the day. I was sick of looking at their stuff, of smelling their dog, and of feeling cramped and unproductive. Today is the day I reclaimed my space. After five years of feeling unwelcome and miserable in my home, today had to be the day it all changed.

I started by putting anything that belonged to my sister or her boyfriend in her bedroom. I knew my parents might not to be fond of this because my aunt and uncle are going to stay there for a couple of weeks in early June, but I got around the issue easily. Now her stuff's all in one place! It's easier to pack!

Next, I vacuumed. And vacuumed. And vacuumed. Then I found the grossest thing ever.

I don't know if my sister thought through her decision to buy two baby rabbits last summer. For one thing, we already had a cat and a dog. Neither of those animals can comprehend our stupid human affection for its prey, especially not the cat. He probably thought we bought him a fancy dinner because we worship him. I wouldn't have bought the rabbits. I think caging up baby animals in a house with their natural predators living nearby is kind of sadistic. But whatever.

As cute as they are, I think rabbits are probably the grossest and dumbest pets ever. They poop more than anything I've ever seen. These rabbits were so dumb that they pooped in their food bowl all the time. And when they were done pooping in their food bowl, they flung their bedding and poop out of the cage. As often as my sister cleaned the cage, I can't really blame them. I wouldn't want to eat, sleep, and shit in the same room either. My sister eventually got fed up with the rabbits and gave them away after a month or two. Instead of cleaning up the mess, though, my sister decided to drop a couple of boxes of random stuff on top of the poop and call it good.

I screamed at the poop, vacuumed, and disinfected the whole area. I even found rabbit poop inside my foosball table. I guess at some point the rabbits' cage was on top of it. I was too angry for words. I was also horrified by the sheer filth. The rabbits had been gone for almost a year. I shouldn't have found any of their poop anywhere. I kept on with my mission.

I ended up bagging up three bags of garbage and collecting several piles of my sister's dirty laundry. And then, finally, I could start rearranging furniture and setting up my living room and workspace.

It's not exactly the way I would like for it to be. My sister's unwillingness to move her stuff out of the house and my parents' decision to house my aunt and uncle keep me from setting up the spare room as my music and art studio until at least mid-July. But this is, at least, healthier and more functional than what I woke up to this morning.

Monday, May 20, 2013

I hate job interviews because I suck at them, and no matter how much I practice, I end up forgetting all the great responses I thought of and just stringing together a bunch of phrases that are loosely related to the job. "DEVELOPMENTALLY UM APPROPRIATE POSITIVE RAPPORT UH WITH STUDENTS OPEN COMMUNICATION WITH FAMILIES BURRITO." I've concluded every job interview as a sweaty, tearful mess, knowing I didn't get whatever job I was interviewing for because I word-vomited all over the interviewer.

I feel that asking me a series of loosely related questions in the most intimidating way possible is not the most accurate way to assess whether I know anything about children or if I am a good teacher. Not even my stupid magna cum laude can tell you that. A simulated workplace experience would be the most valid assessment of my abilities, but I digress.

Instead, I will practice for future interviews...

Tell me about yourself.

Well the story of my life is, the ships go nowhere and there's little to no character development.

Why do you want to work for us?

I don't. I don't want to work anywhere that can pay me, but I need money, and this is the only legal form of prostitution.

Tell me about your strengths.

I'm the baddest ass motherfucker on the planet. I invent new combinations of swear words in traffic. I can make grown men cry with my words.

Tell me about your areas to improve in.

I killed a cactus. I am less nurturing than a desert.

What is your ultimate career goal?

To be a chef/singer/artist/therapist. I really don't know. It changes every ten minutes. That was cute when I was eight. What? You expect me to have an answer?

P.S. this entry is super short because I spent today with an awesome friend who helped me gather materials for an upcoming project!

Sunday, May 19, 2013

I've spent my whole life chronically late for everything ranging from work, to school, to doctor's appointments, and even to hanging out with my friends.

It makes complete sense to me if I'm late for work or a doctor's appointment; those are both unpleasant activities that it rarely pays to be early for. I've mainly worked at jobs where no one noticed if I came in five minutes late on a daily basis. And school is almost impossible for us nocturnal folks. I was only ever successfully on time for classes that began after 2 PM.

My chronic tardiness for social gatherings is another thing entirely. Imagine an introvert who has both the inattentiveness and impulsivity of ADHD combined with the avoidance behaviors of an anxiety disorder, specifically social anxiety disorder. And, well, that's basically me.

It's really hard for me because most of my friends only get the ADHD aspect of my tardiness. Take, for example, this lovely tale...

Here I am, dressed and ready to leave at the proper time to be at my friend Tina's place by 2 PM. Then I realize I failed to eat anything for breakfast/lunch and need to do that. So I spend 10 minutes deciding what to eat and then another 10 actually eating. I'm already 20 minutes late, but then I remember I have a dog! And unlike the cat, the dog depends on me to go to the bathroom in the proper location. So then I spend another 15 minutes walking the dog because, as it turns out, he doesn't actually need to go; he just wants to harass the neighbor's dog. Now I can actually leave, but on my way out to Tina's, I pass by this charity shop that displays furniture outside. I saw this really cool retro bookshelf I had to check out. So I drive around the block to get back to the shop, where I end up buying a coffee table instead. I am now leaving to get to my friend's house at my agreed-upon arrival time.

Stories like that are easy to pass off as my losing track of time because they closely resemble typical human behavior, if only the bookshelf had been a shiny object, but they don't really get at the anxiety underneath. The reality of it is that I spend significant amounts of time mentally preparing myself for social interaction. I have to psych myself up to leave my house. I have to plan post-socialization recovery time. Sometimes I need a little more or less preparation or recovery time, but it's really hard to predict. And it's not easy to call someone (especially one of my more extroverted friends) and say, "Oh hey, my coping mechanisms aren't working today. I'll be two hours late."

Saturday, May 18, 2013

It's been a lifelong desire to have unnatural hair colors, possibly because I grew up listening to No Doubt and also because I wasn't allowed to dye my hair as a teenager. I got to dye my hair a few times (always natural colors) before my mom panicked about the possibility of having a Satan-worshipping lesbian daughter and said I couldn't dye my hair anymore until I was eighteen and living elsewhere.

So I did what any fourteen year old would. I went to stay with my dad for two weeks and dyed my hair blue. And when it was time to go back home, I dyed my hair brown again.

And, well, my mom was a lot smarter then fourteen-year-old me gave her credit for. There was a lot of yelling and some hitting and some nasty phone calls to my dad involved. My dad told my mom the same thing I did: that I was fourteen and didn't have a job and if I wanted blue hair, why not? It's better to experiment with hair dye rather than with drugs. Telling me not to dye my hair was a stupid rule.

That was the end of my hair dyeing adventures until college, where I proceeded to experiment with red hair (bad idea), henna hair staining (a goopy and very smelly idea), and purple hair (which earned me a lot of strange looks from my sorority-girl classmates in the good ol' College of Education). I learned that I liked my natural hair color best, but that I envied people who could have blue or purple hair all the time.

Now that I'm an unemployed college graduate, I can!

I'll start by showing you a picture of my hair in its generally unmolested state as I prepared for my journey:

As you can see, it's a darkish brown. I enlisted my friend Tina to help me with the bleaching and dyeing process. I was to help her tint her hair with henna for the first time.

We were both in for nasty surprises.

Dying your hair with henna is like joining a pyramid scheme. Once someone has duped you into joining, your only method for survival is to find victims of your own. If you've never dyed your hair with real henna, you should know that it's only for hardcore people who don't want to use real hair dye. It's also for people who either have no sense of smell or those who don't mind the smell of dog shit drying on their hair for three hours.

I didn't document Tina's process, as I felt she'd suffered enough injustice through the ordeal. But if her husband ever makes good on his threat to upload a video of it to YouTube, I'll let you know.

My turn was next. After some debating, we chose to forego a bleaching kit in favor of a cheap box of blond hair dye. It would do the same job, but without doing as much damage to my hair (we hoped). Our plan worked, with some minor hiccups.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but my hair came out patchy and oddly colored. I'll call it Canary Auburn. Also, there were huge spots of still-brown hair. For the sake of our friendship, I'll say Tina missed these spots by accident. She wanted to fix them, but we didn't because that would involve (1) putting more bleach on my head and (2) digging through the trash to get the bleach.

And after hours of waiting, it was Purple Time!

As you can see, I chose to mix two Manic Panic dyes: Purple Haze and Ultra Violet. Here are the long-awaited results:

This is what a Satan worshipper would look like, if I actually worshipped Satan.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Okay, they're snack cakes. They're homemade Funny Bones, to be exact. My stepmom is from New Jersey, where she used to be able to eat these, but since she moved down south twenty years ago, they've been hard to come by. So for her birthday, my dad asked me to make some homemade ones for her. He found a copycat recipe here.

Relatives from New Jersey have sent us these cakes before, but I've only had one or two, so I'm not 100% sure what they're supposed to taste like. But chocolate cake, with peanut butter icing and a chocolate coating? They're probably delicious.

There's already a well-written blog entry that accompanies this recipe. It shows the process if you're interested. I don't want to rip off the original author by detailing my own process (which is pretty much the same as hers) here.

Here's how the cakes turned out...

And here's the part the other blog doesn't show you.

And yes, it was 3:27 AM before I finished the cakes. I started them around midnight, as I wanted her to have some for lunch today, but since they were a surprise, I had to wait until she went to sleep to start making them.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

I've been battling a migraine for two days. Like seriously, it's as if a sinus headache morphed into a migraine that had a baby with another migraine, so today's creation is a bit utilitarian...dinner! Since I wasn't feeling well, I decided to use a slow cooker. My dinner preparations began around lunch time.

I put them in the slow cooker with one container of barbeque sauce (I used Jack Daniels brand) and about half a cup of Coca Cola. I added some cayenne pepper because the sauce and cola were a bit sweet.

This is what they looked like after about seven hours on low heat.

I also made garlic parmesan mashed potatoes and creamed corn with the barbeque ribs. I forgot to snap a pic of a plated dish before I chowed down. Alas, I am still learning how to run a blog! Tomorrow's creation will also be a food adventure, but of the dessert variety!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

I'm a pretty low-maintenance girl. Low-maintenance as in almost clueless about make up, nail polish, hair styling, and anything beyond basic grooming. Most attempts result in smeared make up, lumpy nail polish, and half-used and abandoned beauty products littering my bathroom.

Now that I'm an unemployed college graduate, I spend way too much time on Tumblr and Pinterest, where I see lots of cute designs for nails. Nails that I probably will never have because, honestly, nail polish is just a way to keep me from biting the hell out of my nails. But I'm not patient enough for nails that are studded with rhinestones or intricate designs.

So I decided to try a nail design that's a little more "me." I started with a solid color.

So yesterday, the lovely Sarah (of Sarah's Art Daily) invited me to learn how to make dolls. She'd already created Mr. Cat for her mom's birthday, and since both of us lived past lives in Ancient Egypt, we decided Mr. Cat needed a new friend.

I don't have any photos of the process, but if you're interested, you can check out Sarah's entry here.

And here is Mr. Cat's friend on the right...he still doesn't have a name. :-(

I'm going to get more materials to make my own stuffed animal friends. I have a niece and nephew who adore stuffed animals, and a new niece or nephew on the way. If I were teaching, I would also love to make these as reading buddies for my students. :-)